


pluck the heartstrings gently

by jk_rockin



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Coming In Pants, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, very slight verbal feminisation but only a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29212419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/jk_rockin
Summary: It was quiet in the house when Edward returned. The lodgings weren't much for heroes of Her Majesty’s Navy, but the house taken for the officers had real wooden beds with quite tolerable mattresses, and Edward's room had a window that looked out over the beach. From some of the other rooms, he could hear quiet snores- the weather here was so fine and warm that some of the fellows had taken to long afternoon naps, like the Spaniards' siesta, sleeping inside or outside as their fancy took them, alone or piled up together like puppies. Perhaps Edward would join them today; he could stick a pillow behind himself to keep from rolling onto his sore ear.But he had a task to attend to, first. Removing his boots, then unbuttoning his jacket and then his shirt, he stripped to the waist, and took the little bag from the market out of his pocket.
Relationships: Francis Crozier/Edward Little
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	pluck the heartstrings gently

**Author's Note:**

> So on one of this fandom’s beautiful Discord servers, we got talking about an AU setting where they find the Passage, make it through the other side, and the crew gets to dry out on the Sandwich Islands, a.k.a. Hawaii, a.k.a. The Franklin Expedition: Hot Girl Summer (a.k.a Irving’s Tropical Fuck Rampage, though he’s not in this one). Some absolutely magnificent concepts spiraled out of that conversation and I do hope they come to fruition, but here is my modest offering: tropical nipple play, feat. pierced nip!Little. Written for The Terror Rarepair Week 2021, for the prompt "After The Expedition".
> 
> Title from _Solid Gold_ by We Say Bamboulee. As ever, if there's something in here you wish I'd tagged for that I didn't, let me know.

The number of new people on the Sandwich islands was the hardest thing to acclimatise to. The heat was strange, after so long in the cold, but a welcome strangeness; the people, less so, though they were friendly enough. Edward was never much given to crowds, and in the years in the ice he had lost what ability he might have had to politely decline the fruits and trinkets thrust under his nose by overbearing market sellers. Funny, to forget what it was to be sold things.

It was the accent that turned his head- a London accent, in the midst of the tropical heat. “You’re a sailor, sir,” the girl called to him, looking him over appraisingly. “One of that Arctic crew. You’ll want your ear done, to mark your journey.”

“That’s for crossing the equator,” Edward said, but he did stop, eye caught by the sparkling jewellery on her stall. All kinds, gold and silver, necklaces and rings and bangles, and, yes, earrings, both jeweled and plain.

“Or the Arctic Circle,” the girl replied. “A few of your boys have been in already. Unless you’re wanting something pretty to take home for your sweetheart?”

Edward fingered his earlobe.

On his way back out of the little parlour outside of which the girl had her wares laid out, he stopped again, looking down at the array of gleaming metal. "Very dashing, sir," she said, nodding at his stinging ear. "Bleed much?"

Shaking his head, Edward pointed at a set of plain gold hoops on the stall, a little bigger than the one through his lobe. "These ones as well, please."

"Lovely choice. You and your girl can match." The girl put the rings in a little bag for him, took his money, and was already calling out to another passerby when Edward turned to leave.

It was quiet in the house when Edward returned. The lodgings weren't much for heroes of Her Majesty’s Navy, but the house taken for the officers had real wooden beds with quite tolerable mattresses, and Edward's room had a window that looked out over the beach. From some of the other rooms, he could hear quiet snores- the weather here was so fine and warm that some of the fellows had taken to long afternoon naps, like the Spaniards' siesta, sleeping inside or outside as their fancy took them, alone or piled up together like puppies. Perhaps Edward would join them today; he could stick a pillow behind himself to keep from rolling onto his sore ear.

But he had a task to attend to, first. Removing his boots, then unbuttoning his jacket and then his shirt, he stripped to the waist, and took the little bag from the market out of his pocket.

It had been a fancy of his long time ashore. One of the boys in the molly house he'd liked best had had his nipples pierced with gold rings, connected by a thin gold chain, and he'd yowl like a cat if you tugged on it. After they were done, he'd given Edward the address of his jeweler.

Deciding to do it had been quick. Saving up the money had not been, on half pay, but God, he'd wanted it. He'd always been sensitive there, and the piercings had only made him more so- even having them done, though it had hurt, had left him so hard he’d barely been able to walk a straight line out of the place, and he’d spent the days after shuddering and twitching at every brush of his shirt. By who knows what power, he'd managed to keep his own hands off them long enough to let them heal clean, and the weight of the rings had been a balm, a shining secret he carried with him under his clothes, just for him.

He'd had to take them out, for the Arctic, and sell the rings to make up the cost of his Arctic gear. He knew earring holes closed up, which had been sad to think on, but, to his joy, the holes at his breast never had. He'd longed for his rings to tug on, in the long private night hours; more than once, he'd shamefully resorted to threading them through with thick needles he’d filched from the sailmaker's toolbox, pricking his fingers in his hurry to feel the metal under his skin.

Now- now he was warm, and safe, afternoon sun slanting through the shutters, and the little gold hoops gleamed in his hand.

His hands shook a little as he threaded the first ring through. The soft gold bent open easily enough, and back together again, warm enough that it hardly felt any different at first. Unable to resist, he tugged on it, just once, biting his lip to stifle a sound of pleasure. Just a little stretch, an awareness of pressure from the inside. The sensation of an empty place filled. He'd just twisted apart the second hoop when two knocks came on the door, and, without waiting for an answer, Captain Crozier entered.

Startling, Edward dropped the ring.

“Good grief, you jump like a new foal," said the captain, closing the door behind him.

“Sorry, sir,” said Edward. His shirt was on the bed beside him. Was it more impolite to leap for it, or to stay undressed?

Crozier waved a hand. “No need for that, I barged in on you. Thought I’d see if anyone else was awake,” he said. His eyes flicked down to the tiny circle of gold on the floor by Edward’s feet, then back up his body to his chest, where its twin glinted. “But I can see you’re busy.”

“No, I...” Edward trailed off. It was quite clear that he was… occupied, and with something private, but the captain had not moved; he merely looked at Edward, expectant. Waiting to see what he’d do.

Edward knelt- not quite, not _knelt_ , not like- he went to one knee, that was all, bending to pick up the hoop, and when he looked up Crozier was still there, watching him, so he held it out to him, on his upturned palm. Crozier stepped forward and took it, his fingers brushing over Edward’s skin, and he held the ornament up to the light, turning it. “Real gold, looks like,” he said. “Treating yourself?”

The blush started on his neck, hot and blotchy and impossible to hide, and he knew Crozier could see it. Could see _him_. He wanted to cover himself, or at least his chest, but at the same time, there was something in the captain’s gaze, a weight, the kind of feeling that the part of him that had spent all that time in molly houses wanted to chase. “Had my ear done, sir,” he said, pointing, somewhat redundantly, to his pierced lobe. “To mark the Passage.”

“I don’t recall any polar traditions regarding any adornments south of the neck,” said Crozier. “But then those don't seem new, do they."

Edward shook his head. “No,” he made himself say.

“Up, lad. Show me,” Crozier said, and Edward got up, following the order without thought.

He’d never given the matter much consideration- had spent a great deal of time on _Terror_ very carefully not thinking about how any of his fellow officers or his commanders might touch another man- but the bold, questing touch of Captain Crozier’s fingers still came as something of a surprise. His palm was warm and rough on Edward’s chest, and he stayed like that for a long moment, his thumb and forefinger bracketing the ring, as if to see it better. Humming thoughtfully, the captain brought his fingers together in a rolling pinch.

Edward’s back hit the wall, too sharply overwhelmed to react in time to muffle the desperate sound the pressure drew from him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-” he started to say, but Crozier only stepped closer and pinched him there again, less gentle this time, more focused, and Edward’s apology dissolved into a whimper.

"You hid these away all the way from home," said Crozier. His voice was soft, conversational. He didn’t let go of Edward, and the pressure between Edward’s skin and the metal under it was the very narrow focus of Edward’s world. “Can't have bedecked yourself like this in the ice. Metal’s like a lightning rod for the cold. One of the ABs on Terror- this was back in ‘39, in Antarctica- wouldn’t take out his earring from crossing the line. Lost the whole earlobe to frostbite, poor devil.”

This sort of talk should have stopped Edward’s burgeoning cockstand dead, but the sweetness of the pressure, along with the warmth of the captain’s body against his, kept him on the edge. He canted his hips back, trying not to rub himself anywhere he oughtn't. “Sir,” he said, pleading, though he wasn’t sure what for.

With a sharper parting squeeze, Crozier let go, and brought his other hand up to Edward’s unadorned pectoral, petting at the swell of flesh. The flash of the other ring between the captain’s fingers, too, came almost as a surprise. “Not done this before,” Crozier warned, setting one open end of the ring against the hole in Edward's nipple.

The sensation of the second ring entering him ought not to have felt any different to the first, but it was different, ceding control of pace and angle to another's hand. The captain did not rush, or poke it about inaccurately; he threaded the ring through in a few short, efficient movements, and twisted the ends closed with a tug that set Edward biting his lip.

"There you are," said the captain. He cupped Edward's pectorals, like he might do a woman’s breasts. “Pretty.”

The whine Edward let out was mortifying. His cock throbbed in his smallclothes, absurdly erect. Putting in the ring- no, just _thinking_ of putting in the ring had stirred him, and feeling the metal slip inside had made it worse, and now he had Crozier’s deft, capable hands on him, his skin felt two sizes too small all over his body. Ridiculous, juvenile, to be so hard over such scant contact.

“Not just pretty, though,” the captain mused, rubbing his thumbs over the rings, seemingly unbothered by how Edward squirmed under his touch. “Not just for looks- oh, don’t pout, they look well on you, lad, but you didn’t get them to be looked at, did you- it’s how they _feel_.”

“Captain,” Edward gasped. Crozier grinned, the lines around his eyes crinkling, and his knee came up between Edward’s, making room for himself, and, yes, there was the captain’s yard against his thigh, half-mast but rising, and the captain’s leg, firm and solid, pressing up just right.

“Were you playing with these, locked away in your bunk, in the cold?” Crozier squeezed Edward’s chest, pressing his thumbs down. “Must have been, to keep them open this long. Y’must have had your hand up your shirt every night, you selfish thing.”

“Sel-selfish, sir?” Edward stammered, head spinning. His hands were on Crozier’s shoulders, clinging- when that had happened, he could not have said.

“Keeping pretty little tits like these all to yourself,” Crozier murmured.

Moaning, Edward’s head fell back against the wall. Ridiculous, ridiculous, but it made his head spin all the same, and it kept the captain’s hands on him- on his _tits_ \- and that was more important, wasn’t it, than worrying about what it meant. “Nobody to share them with aboard, sir.”

Crozier gave him a long, considering glance. “Suppose it wouldn’t have been fit conduct for an officer,” said Crozier. “Different now, though. All the lads down at the beach, parading about in their smalls- they’re all going to see these now, aren’t they, Lieutenant?” He gave each nipple a harsh twist, one and then the other, leaving no time for Edward to breathe between them. “All red and sore. Everyone’s going to know what you’ve been up to.”

What _we’ve_ been up to, Edward thought. What you’ve been doing to me. He wanted to walk down to the sand in the cool evening with his aching tits on display, nipples pink and peaked with the rings gleaming in them, and have everyone know who’d done that to him. It was a stupid thing to want; even at his drunkest, Crozier would never have done this on ship, the chances of being caught high as they were. Doing it now was a foolish risk. There would be no honour in being known as his plaything.

God, he wanted it, though.

The captain rolled his hips, the heat of his prick tangible through his trousers, the friction wonderful and maddening. Edward was going to come like this if they didn’t stop, and he wanted that too, wanted to make a mess. “If you keep doing that, sir, I’m going to-”

Crozier pulled on the rings, making Edward arch his back and rub his cock along Crozier’s thigh. “Do it,” he said, raspy with desire, and he lowered his mouth to Edward’s chest, laving his tongue over one bud, then the other, and then he set his teeth to them, worrying the flesh with tiny, sharp bites, and that was it; Edward came in his trousers in long pulses, quivering between the wall and Crozier's warm, solid body. "Good Christ," Crozier said. "Look at you, lad. Look at you.”

He could hardly imagine how he must look. Flushed, sweating, shirtless and barefoot, astride the thigh of his fully clothed captain, his linens wet with his own spend. The picture he must make burned in his stomach, making him shiver. “Captain,” he said.

Again, that considering look. It drew the shivering out, made it sweeter. The little grin Crozier tipped him, too, was good; reassurance, if only silent reassurance, that Edward had not disappointed or done wrong. “You like that, then.”

A helpless bubble of laughter came out of Edward. “Only ruined my trousers with it,” he said. Things were somewhat sticky down there, but his whole body felt loose with his release, and his pectorals- no, not that word. His _tits_ ached, just like he’d wanted them to. He felt marvelous.

“Hm.” Crozier had not moved away. His own yard still pressed against Edward’s thigh; he rocked, so gently as to almost be imperceptible, against his weight. Not urgent, but present. “How much ruination can you take, do you think?”

Unclenching his hands from the captain’s shirt, Edward brought them down to the buttons of his braces, pulling at them with his fingers still clumsy with pleasure. “A fair bit more, I think, sir,” he said, and he slid back and down along the captain’s body, back onto his knees, taking the captain’s trousers down with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and scream about icy lads with me [on tumblr](https://jkrockin.tumblr.com/) or [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/jk_rockin).


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